Instead of making it easier for citizens to vote, the Fair Elections Act would make it more difficult, writes Daphne Bramham. The act would eliminate so-called vouching at the polls, which makes it possible for those without the proper identification to vote with the endorsement of another citizen whom they know.

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The most desperately needed election reforms are ones that would make it easier for citizens whose interest in voting seems to diminish each year. Yet, proposed changes at the federal and municipal level are crafted more for the convenience and expediency of politicians than the good of democracy.

In Ottawa, the government is making a hash of its absurdly named Fair Elections Act. Instead of making it easier for citizens to vote, it would make it more difficult.

Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre insists “the bill is terrific the way it is,” although this week Conservative MPs and senators appear to be having some doubts.

As it stands, the act would eliminate so-called vouching at the polls, which makes it possible for those without the proper identification to vote with the endorsement of another citizen whom they know.

It would eliminate the possibility of electronic voting in the future.

It would muzzle the chief electoral officer, making it illegal to do any advertising that encourages citizens to go to the polls. That important task would be the sole purview of political parties.

The whole exercise has been fraught with pettifoggery.

Tory MP Brad Butt admitted to lying about having witnessed widespread voter fraud in his riding.

B.C.’s former chief electoral officer Harry Neufeld has accused Poilievre and the government of misinterpreting his report in ads to support changes in the bill. Far from supporting the elimination of vouching, Neufeld said its elimination, coupled with the required use of voter information cards, risks disenfranchising more than half a million Canadians.

As for the current federal chief electoral officer, Marc Mayrand has said the changes would effectively “take the referee off the ice.”

Meantime in Victoria, the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act skated into the legislature last week with an Orwellian twist. It contains no substantive changes to campaign financing, despite those reforms being the most sought by citizens who four years ago took part in a public consultation.

(The bill’s introduction rated little more than a few paragraphs of news coverage. Of course, it was a day largely taken up with dissecting Speaker Linda Reid’s latest spending indiscretion.)

The proposed act sets no limit for individual donations. There is no ban on donors from outside the municipality including those who live outside Canada.

There is no ban on corporate or union donations and no limit on how much third parties can spend on election advertising.

And, the act leaves the door open for politicians and political parties to raise buckets of money outside the election period without having to report it.

Instead of reforming spending, the big change in the act is to extend the terms of mayors and councillors to four years from three. It’s a change barely mentioned during the public consultation.

If this were happening somewhere else, people would be clucking about the inability of certain democracies to get this stuff right; others would be thinking how best to turn it into a late-night joke or comedy sketch.

In this gloom of failing democracy, there are two thin rays of hope.

Last November, North Vancouver city council passed a motion urging all candidates to refuse donations from unions representing city employees and developers with projects or potential projects to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

And this week, Green party Councillor Adriane Carr put in a notice of motion for Vancouver council’s April 15 meeting.

If it is passed, Vancouver would ask that before the November election, the provincial government amend its newly minted legislation as well as the Vancouver Charter to include spending caps, donor caps and bans on union, corporate and foreign donations.

And if the provincial government refuses, Vancouver would develop its own set of campaign finance guidelines and ask all parties and candidates to voluntarily follow them.

The motion will almost certainly pass since Vancouver’s Vision-dominated council has supported these reforms in the past.

And, why not? Its election coffers have already been topped up thanks to Condo King Bob Rennie hosting exclusive lunches with Mayor Gregor Robertson where the 50-or-so guests are encouraged to fork over $25,000 each to the Vision campaign.

Still these timid stirrings are noteworthy.

Carr’s notice of motion was coincidentally filed on the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court freed wealthy donors to have even greater influence on the outcome of federal elections in that country. It’s not that they didn’t have a lot before. In 2012, 646 donors alone gave $93 million to candidates and committees.

In the name of defending the constitutional right of citizens to choose who shall govern them, the court struck down spending limits on candidates, committees and political parties.

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